


(no) fear of drowning

by maychorian



Series: Seeing Triple [1]
Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Action/Adventure, Angst, Blood, Drowning, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Existential Angst, Gen, Horror, Minor Character Death, Post-Season/Series 04, Team as Family, Violence, shiro clone theory
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-11-01
Updated: 2017-11-07
Packaged: 2019-01-27 19:22:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 11,056
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12588844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maychorian/pseuds/maychorian
Summary: Forplatonicvldweek 3.0. The plan is to write seven ficlets, all building up into one story from the POV of (not)Shiro, sometimes called Kuron, after Season Four. Day One Prompt: Sleep/Nightmare. After a nightmare leaves Shiro sleepless in the lounge, Lance arrives in a similar state and they have a heart-to-heart.





	1. Sleep/Nightmare

**Author's Note:**

> Title from [Work by Jars of Clay](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lL0041GDsqE).

The team broke a little, after Naxcella. Not in a big way. There was no major breakdown, no huge emotional fuss. They could still form Voltron. They still fought as well as ever.

But they were all just a little bit...worn down. Cracked at the edges. Missing pieces, little ones, but noticeable enough to someone who was paying attention.

Shiro felt it deep inside his head. That weird headache that plagued him, that had never gone away since his second escape from the Galra, shifted a bit in intensity. It seemed to hit on different parts of brain, now, fuzzing out details that used to be clear. In return, details that had once been blurred and indistinct became more readable, more present. This was not, on the whole, a good thing.

It used to be, when insomnia gripped him and he couldn't sleep for nightmares, he would wander the ship on a kind of feckless patrol, or go to the training deck and lift weights, or travel to the command deck where he sometimes found Allura, similarly sleepless and sifting through the endless distress signals that had never been answered. Now, though, his body felt drained and useless when he woke in the night, too weak for such activities. So he found himself in the lounge more often than not, sitting on the couch and staring blankly at the opposite wall, lights dimmed in the futile hope that sleep might find him somehow.

About a week after Naxcella, Lance wandered into the lounge, dressed in his robe and slippers, steaming mug in one hand. Shiro lifted his head and looked at him dully. Lance's eyes were closed in a deep yawn, but Shiro saw the dark rings around around them, the deep furrows in his forehead. Lance stumbled toward the couch, eyes half-closed, then finally registered Shiro's presence and drew up short.

"Oh. 'Lo, Shiro."

Shiro smiled joylessly and patted the couch next to him. "Welcome to the club."

Lance chuckled roughly. "Is that what we're calling it?" He plopped down next to Shiro and pulled his hot mug up to his face, breathing in the steam as his eyes slipped shut.

Shiro smelled something like vanilla, something like sugar. "Hot milk?"

Lance gave him an exhausted smile. "It's supposed to help."

"Yeah." He dared to reach out and pet his head, sifting his fingers gently through Lance's silky soft hair. The kid took good care of his hair. "Wanna talk about it?"

Nightmares. They all had them. And they'd been worse since Naxcella. Lance used to sleep through the night, sound and solid, like a child in his mother's arms. Most of them didn't like to talk about their nightmares, preferring to keep those deep terrors and worst-case scenarios at arm's length, as if not speaking them aloud could prevent them from returning. Lance, and usually Hunk, were more likely to talk about it the morning, hashing it out between the two of them and exclaiming in sympathy at each other's griefs. It had become a common breakfast conversation lately, more was the pity.

But Lance gave him a half-lidded look. "You first."

Shiro snorted. Lance was also the one to push, to tell the others that they ought to talk about it, that it would help. Shiro always refused, but now Lance was using his own pain as leverage, refusing to let Shiro help him unless he was allowed to help Shiro first. It was sneaky. It was good tactics. Shiro couldn't help but admire it.

So he tipped his head back against the cushion and stared up at the ceiling, chased by shadows in the dim light. This one wasn't too bad, anyway. No blood, no murder, nothing that should add to Lance's own demons. Shiro could share, at least a little.

"It's a new one, this dream I've been having lately. Not from that one year, that's all still pretty buried. But before I came back this last time, there was..." He shook his head. "I don't know. I keep dreaming that I'm drowning in pink liquid. But I can breathe in it. Then it drains away, and I fall to my knees, and I run. I think they gave me some sort of hallucinogen, because I saw other things that weren't real, too. Like Ulaz, turning around to look at me, and then he turned into mist. So I'm sure it's not real, this...this drowning. But it's weird that it keeps coming back."

Lance shuddered. "I'm not scared of drowning, but that's because I always trust my swimming skills to get me out of that sort of situation. I'm sorry, man. It sounds horrible."

"Yeah." Shiro rolled his head over to look at him. "Your turn."

Lance looked troubled, but didn't deny him this time. He took a deep sip of his milk as he worked it out in his mind. "I've had this one a few times, too. A feeling of...weight. Being pressed down, unable to move. Can't get free. I'm sure it's because of that planet."

"Yeah." Shiro sighed. They didn't have to say the planet's name.

"Ever since that day with the crystal, I've been kind of...nervous, I guess, of being in tight spaces. Being trapped. I can handle it, no worries on that, or at least... I could. I could handle it. Was doing fine. Now, I'm not sure. I think that planet might have made it worse."

Shiro's mouth twisted. A pilot with trauma-induced claustrophia. What a cruel trick for the universe to play. He petted the kid's head again, and Lance leaned into it with a small, shuddery sigh.

"It's gonna be okay, buddy."

"Yeah. You too."

Shiro nodded. Lance drank his milk. Fifteen minutes later, Lance was asleep on Shiro's shoulder, and Shiro was staring at the wall.

He wasn't afraid of drowning, either. Right? Right. It was just a hallucination. It was never real. Just random firing of overwrought synapses. Shiro was fine. He was fine.

Right.


	2. Outside/Inside

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some pretty horrific imagery in this chapter. Warning for more sensations of drowning, much stronger this time.

It was Lotor's information that led them here, to this hidden Galra base on the back end of nothing. No other reason ever would have guided them to this spot. There was nothing in any of the databases they had hacked, nothing in any of the soldiers they had interrogated, nothing in any of the intel the Blade of Marmora had stolen or won or earned by blood. 

"The witch is particularly invested in this lab," Lotor had said, laughing as he entered the information into the pad Allura and Coran gave him to convey his data. They sat at a wary distance, eyeing him across a table, as Lotor slouched with his elbows spread taking up as much space as he could. He looked at the pad with studied nonchalance, tapping at it with one long forefinger, but Shiro could read the tension in his shoulders, the line of his back. He didn't trust them, but they didn't trust him, so it was fair.

"She has a whole network of these labs," Lotor said, pushing the pad across the table. "So many secret projects. Little pets. I'll give you all of them. It will annoy her immensely, which will please me in equal turn. But start with this one. I want to imagine her scream of rage and frustration ringing across the entirety of the cosmos."

Allura reached out with the fingers of one hand and pulled the pad closer to herself, then looked down at the data, eyes narrowed with suspicion. Then she looked up at Lotor and nodded, once. "We will start with this. If it is worthwhile, we will ask for more."

Lotor nodded and leaned back in his chair, smiling like a devil, a playboy, the cover of a magazine.

They tried to verify his information independently, but all they learned was that a Galra lab did indeed exist in the location Lotor gave them. They found no record of Haggar's involvement, nothing to indicate that it was special in any way. But then, if Haggar was trying to keep a secret, she would be canny enough to make sure that no trace of her involvement showed.

Now Shiro stood in the bowels of the empty lab, scorches on the wall revealing the pains Voltron had gone through in taking the base. The resistance was few, but very determined, and they had not been able to take any of them alive. No one to question, no one to ask the purpose of this place, what Haggar's intention for it was.

Now Shiro stood in front of a tall tube full of pink liquid, staring silently at what he saw. Inside the tube was his own face, staring blankly out at him. A perfect doppelganger floated in the liquid, quiescent and still. 

Shiro raised his left hand and touched his face, feeling the scar across his nose as he looked at the one on his mirror image. He felt numb, distant. This couldn't possibly be real. It was a trick, another hallucination.

The other Shiro remained exactly where he was, staring back at Shiro through the pink liquid and the glass separating them. He did not seem to see Shiro, his face blank and uncomprehending, or at least he didn't recognize him. His chest rose and fell inside the liquid, though no mask covered his face to give him air. The pink liquid was breathable, somehow. Shiro might have thought that he was asleep, but his eyes were open.

The Shiro inside the tube looked weak, withered. His muscles had lost definition, and his face was rough with stubble. He did not blink. He did not smile. He did not seem to know that Shiro was there.

Shiro reeled internally, though he stood frozen, unable to move. He had to remind himself of who he was. He was Shiro. He was the Shiro outside the tube. There was also another Shiro inside the tube, but he was outside. He was Shiro. He was...

Other people raced up behind him, exclaiming in horror and confusion at the sight of both Shiros, the one inside and the one outside the tube. There was a flurry of movement, high-pitched instructions, a rush of activity that the outside Shiro could not quite bring himself to comprehend. He stared at the inside Shiro and could not look away no matter how much he wanted to.

And oh, how he wanted to. How he longed to look away.

One of the other people now in the room found some sort of control, a button, a latch, and the tube of pink liquid began to drain. Water swirled downward, exiting through several drainage holes in the floor of the tube. The Shiro inside also fell, eyelids fluttering at the movement, though he still seemed blind, deaf, insensate. The tube opened as the last of the liquid drained, and the Shiro inside fell to his knees, chest heaving at his first touch of air in who knew how long. And now the Shiro inside was also outside, and Shiro couldn't keep track of the differences anymore.

He stumbled back and sat down on the floor, hard, as the other Shiro rolled helplessly, limbs flailing like an infant who had not yet learned how to coordinate, how to move. The other Shiro rolled on his side, eyes staring sightlessly forward, and his mouth gaped open and shut like a fish dragged out of the water and left to drown on the shore. His chest hitched, but could not seem to rise enough to bring in the air. A high-pitched noise came out of his mouth, something terrible, horrible, incomprehensible. It was not a word. It was only a sound of pain, distress. It sounded blind and insensate, too, like the sound the lowest kind of animal would release as it died at the hands of something it did not understand.

The others swarmed around him, desperately trying to help. Calling his name, "Shiro, Shiro," and Shiro longed to respond, but he could not. He only sat there on the floor, staring at his own face. He watched the dim light in his own eyes as it dimmed even further. The other Shiro still could not breathe, could not catch his breath. His lips turned blue. He was drowning before Shiro's eyes.

Time went fuzzy for Shiro, then. He watched himself die. The other Shiro never took a full breath. 

The others were horror-stricken, grieved beyond measure. Shiro registered their pain in some distant part of his body that was not currently pasted to the floor, but he could not respond. He wanted to soothe them, his teammates, his family, wanted to pet their hair and murmur in their ears and hold them close for as long as they would allow it. But he couldn't move. His chest heaved, his voice choked, and he almost believed that he was drowning, too, drowning in the air.

He didn't drown. When Shiro came back to himself, he was in the lounge on the castleship, wrapped in several blankets with Hunk sitting next to him, holding him with both arms around him as he tried to warm Shiro's chilled body and numbed soul. He'd gone into shock, they told him later, and no wonder. It would shock anyone to see something like that. But everything's okay now. It's okay.

The Shiro inside the tube was a clone. Coran had determined that, after many tests and scans. Pidge had determined that, after hacking the system of the Galra lab and pulling all the data. Allura had determined that, after studying the remnants of his quintessence, weak and faltering like a firefly trapped in a jar. Lance had determined it, after looking over the body and determining that there were not enough scars, only the one across his nose. They hadn't even replaced his arm, Hunk told Shiro, the Shiro outside, because it would have been useless.

The Shiro inside, the clone Shiro, was imperfect. His lungs didn't work. That was why Haggar had abandoned him. That was why he had been left in the lab, an example of failed science. That was why he had drowned the instant they removed him from the pink liquid that had been keeping him alive. 

"I don't think he knew it," Hunk said, still holding Shiro close and tight and warm, warm, warm. "Coran scanned his brain, and he said it was like a baby's. Less than a baby, because there wasn't even enough activity to show memories of being in a womb, being born. He knew...nothing. He was like...like an amoeba. So it's okay. Don't feel bad. He suffered, but it was short, and then he was gone. It's okay. Everything's okay. Haggar was trying something, but it didn't work. It didn't work, like, even a little bit."

"Hunk," Shiro murmured, leaning into him. It was still hard to remember who he was. The Shiro outside, the Shiro who had always been outside. Right? Right. "Hunk, I watched myself die."

Hunk shuddered and held him closer. "I know. I know. I'm so sorry, dude. I am so, so sorry."

Shiro closed his eyes. It didn't help. He still saw his own face, drowning in the air.

Was he really the Shiro outside? It was so hard to tell. But here he was, in the air, breathing. No pink liquid, no tube of glass trapping him. His friend was holding him, and more friends were outside the door, speaking to each other in low, worried voices. He was here, and he was going to be okay.

He was outside.


	3. Tricks/Treats

Shiro couldn't stop thinking about his clone. The clone's mind had been blank, empty, the others said, no memories, no thoughts, nothing. But what use would a Shiro with an empty mind be to Haggar? She must have planned to fill it with something. It was only the clone's physical deformities that had caused her to discontinue her plans. She had wanted something else.

She had wanted something specific. Something that required a body that looked exactly like Shiro's. Maybe she had been trying to reclaim the Champion, trying to shape him into a weapon for the Empire, as she had originally planned. In that case, the clone's mind would have been filled with savagery and combat skills, loyalty and zealotry, little more. But surely Haggar could do that with other minds without having to start from zero. The Robeasts she kept sending after them proved that.

The more Shiro thought about it, the more convinced he became that Haggar had intended to send the clone to infiltrate them. Voltron was a thorn in the Empire's side, even more so since the establishment of the Voltron Coalition. Haggar had tried to destroy them with an enormous, solar system-spanning bomb, and she had failed, so it only made sense that she would try something more subtle now. Something tricky. Something they wouldn't see coming.

But they had seen it coming thanks to Lotor. Shiro still didn't trust the Galra prince as far as Pidge could throw him, but that was twice now he'd rescued them from Haggar's schemes. Perhaps he just hated Haggar more than he hated them.

Shiro kept remembering something Hunk had said back when they had been arguing about whether they could trust Ulaz. Shiro's arm was connected to his neural pathways, directly to his brain, and they didn't understand the Galra-designed tech at all. It was possible that Haggar could have implanted false memories in Shiro's brain. Theoretically. That statement had haunted Shiro from the moment he heard it. He'd already known that he couldn't trust his own mind, not with all the blank spots, the hidden spaces, the moments when he glitched and froze like a computer that couldn't process the task given to it. But that idea made it far, far worse.

What if it was the other way around? What if Haggar and the druids had been using Shiro's arm to draw his memories out and transmit them back to the Empire? Shiro had thought it was a possibility when they were running from Zarkon and didn't know how he was tracking them, but maybe Haggar's plans had been more subtle, more tricky, even then. Maybe she had been siphoning Shiro's memories into his arm in order to implant them in a clone. No transmission, just...storage.

Maybe that was why his second capture was such a jumble now. Maybe they had used that opportunity to download the memories that had been stored in his arm so they could use them somewhere else. That could be why his recollection of that event was so scrambled, why he kept seeing things that didn't make sense and weren't possible. It hadn't been a hallucinogen messing with him, but something much more awful. A probing finger stuck directly into his brain, stirring it around.

The thought made Shiro's stomach churn. But he couldn't dismiss it. It was exactly the sort of thing that Haggar would love to do.

Maybe this was why he kept dreaming of drowning in pink liquid. During that second capture, he must have seen himself, his clone, floating in a tube. Of course he would dream himself in the clone's place with imagery like that rattling around in his bruised, error-prone mind.

He kept equating himself and his mind to a computer, which was a useful though imperfect analogy. So he went to Pidge.

Pidge was in the green lion's hangar, hanging out at a work table covered with an incomprehensible mish-mash of technology, wires and components and monitors from a variety of planets, though Altean tech dominated. Her old laptop from Earth was perched off to the side, hooked up to a number of alien components like some kind of Franken-computer. A hovering Altean monitor showed the face of Matt Holt, laughing in the middle of some sibling in-joke Shiro couldn't begin to understand if he tried.

Shiro halted in the doorway, a lump rising in his throat, and just watched. He shouldn't interrupt. He didn't know how often Matt was able to pull away from his duties with the rebel forces in order to chat with Pidge, but he knew it wasn't every day. This was a special occasion, and he didn't want to intrude. Those two deserved all the time in the universe.

But Pidge looked over and saw him in the doorway, and her smile broadened instead of waned. She waved him over with big, expansive sweeps of her arm. "Shiro! Come in! Tell Matt that I'm a genius and I'm always right. He doesn't believe me."

Matt scoffed and almost fell over himself laughing, eyes sparkling with glee. Shiro smiled hesitantly and moved closer, undeniably drawn by their warmth and happiness. They were so easy with each other, so confident in each other's presence, despite the long separation and all the pain they'd both been through. He was humbled by it, in truth.

Matt saw him through the screen and waved enthusiastically, smiling fit to bust his face. "Shiro! It's good to see you!"

Shiro smiled back. "Good to see you, too."

"Of course!" Matt poked his cheeks with his index fingers and gave Shiro the cheesiest grin he'd ever seen. "It's always a treat to gaze upon my handsome visage."

Shiro guffawed. "Yeah, it is."

Matt ducked down with a squeak, utterly disarmed by Shiro's affectionate sincerity. Pidge giggled and punched Shiro's arm. "Ooh, you got him. Nice one!"

Shiro grinned at her. "I hope I'm not interrupting."

Pidge shook her head. "Nah, we were just shooting the breeze." She pushed a few electronic doodads out of the way on her work surface and patted it invitingly. "Pop a squat. Is there a reason you came looking for me?"

Shiro hesitated, then hopped up to sit on the work surface, hands clamping down on the surface on either side of his knees as if to hold himself in place. "Actually, yeah. I...I need a favor."

Pidge sobered immediately, as did Matt, reading the seriousness in Shiro's expression and body language. "What's up?"

Shiro explained. Not everything, but enough to convey the urgency of his request. He told them his thoughts that even though his prosthetic arm might not be actively transmitting information to Haggar, it could be somehow storing his memories for later retrieval. He mentioned how he thought that might have contributed to his inability to parse his latest capture and imprisonment at Galra hands, though he said nothing about his suspicions regarding how it might involve a clone.

Pidge's face became even more serious, and Matt leaned closer to the screen, peering through the distance, trying to get a better look at his arm. "We did check for that, you know," Pidge said. "Back when Zarkon was tracking the black lion and we had no idea what was happening and how to stop it. Hunk and I took a ton of scans of your arm and analyzed them every way we knew how."

"Yes, but we were looking for the possibility of active transmissions, not a passive storage component." Shiro lifted his prosthetic arm and flexed it back and forth, metal hand closing into a fist. "Could you please check again? Please? I just... I think I might sleep better."

Pidge looked solemnly into his face for a moment, then nodded, firm and certain. "Yeah. Of course. We'll do all the scans again for fresh data, just to make sure nothing changed during the last time they got their filthy hands on you, and Hunk and I will be even more thorough in checking it out. I promise. Matt will help too, right, Matt?"

Matt nodded. "Yeah, absolutely. I wish I could be there in person, but if nothing else Pidge can send me the data to analyze, and I can go over it with all the resources I have. Maybe the rebels have something else, some other angle I can take on it." He looked directly at Shiro through the screen and smiled, strong and reassuring. "If anything is wrong, we'll figure it out. I'm sure of it."

Shiro smiled back. He felt himself slump where he sat, and he knew how tired he looked. If anyone could fix this, he was sure it would be the three smartest people he'd ever met.

The scans were exhaustive, and exhausting. Pidge used every piece of diagnostic equipment she had gathered to her extensive collection, then ran off and bugged Coran for more. Matt suggested a few others, watching all of the proceedings with avid interest. The Holt siblings chattered up a storm, discussing every step of the process as they went along. Shiro was grateful. He didn't have to answer questions, didn't have to do anything but follow instructions, moving his arm this and way that, sitting here or there or laying down on the floor while Pidge pushed over the more unwieldy pieces of equipment to hover over him. Their voices blurred into a haze, and he tranced out and let them do their thing.

As soon as they were done, Pidge sent him off to bed while she and Matt started preliminary analysis, and Shiro was glad to go. He slept better than he had for weeks, secure in the trust that his friends would find out what was wrong and how to fix it. Everything was going to be okay.

But they didn't find anything. Matt, Pidge, and Hunk were just as thorough as they promised. They spent days on the analysis and brought in Coran, a few rebel tech experts, and even a couple of Blades to consult. And in the end, they could neither confirm Shiro's suspicions nor advise how to get rid of the insidious programming or component or some other trick of Haggar's that he was still positive lurked inside his arm.

"I'm sorry, Shiro," Hunk told him with a frown, and Shiro knew he really was. They had all truly, deeply wanted to be able to give Shiro ease of mind by telling him that there was nothing wrong with his arm. Or if there was, that they could remove it. But they couldn't, and they wouldn't lie and tell Shiro everything was okay when they had no proof.

"That's okay, big guy," Shiro said, his left hand circling his right wrist in a self-conscious grip. He heard the sigh in his voice, and he winced. Hunk did too. Shiro mustered up a smile. "You did everything you could. I'm grateful, truly."

Hunk smiled back, a little weakly, and Shiro wandered off to the think.

He gave himself a couple of days, turning it over every which way in his mind, but in the end, there was only one conclusion he could come to. He didn't know what the dreams of drowning meant. He didn't know what Haggar and her druids might have done to him. He didn't know what tricks could be lurking in his arm, in his body, in his mind.

In the end, he did what he had to do. He called Keith, found him whip-strong and graceful in his Blade of Marmora uniform. "Shiro?" Keith's eyebrows raised, dark eyes raking back and forth as he took in Shiro's haggard appearance. "Are you okay?"

Shiro cleared his throat, then shook his head. "Keith, I'm sorry. I know you don't want this. But I have to ask you, again, to make a sacrifice. I have to ask you to give up what you want to do and do what I need you to do instead."

Keith's mouth tightened, and his eyes hardened. "Shiro, what is this about?"

"Listen, I... I can't trust myself, not anymore. So I need you to come back. I need you to fly Black and lead Voltron again."


	4. Supernatural/Horror

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This is more horror than supernatural, mostly of the existential kind.

"Shiro, where are you going?"

Lance's voice, soft and plaintive. Shiro froze in the middle of packing the shuttle pod. Slowly, he backed out of the cargo compartment and turned around. Lance stood there in the middle of the hangar, hands jammed under his armpits and shoulders hunched. Even from this distance, Shiro could tell that he was starting to tear up.

Shiro swallowed. This wasn't what he wanted. He had fully intended to skip out of the castle in the middle of the night, only Keith aware of why he was going and where. He'd already been through this whole conversation, all the questions, all the justifications, the anger from Keith, the contrition from Shiro only matched by his stubbornness. He didn't want to have this conversation a second time with Lance.

Apparently the universe wasn't going to give him his way, though, because here was the Blue Paladin, shivering in the middle of the cold, empty space of the castle's hangar and trying not to cry. At least Keith hadn't shed any tears. Not where Shiro could see them, anyway.

Shiro closed his eyes for a moment, resigning himself, then carefully moved over to where Lance stood. He tried to keep a distance, though every instinct in his body screamed for him to put a hand on Lance's shoulder, brush away his tears, hug him. Just something, anything, to stop his pain. But he didn't dare. He couldn't make this any harder, not for himself and not for Lance.

Lance looked into his face, eyes moving back and forth as if reading his expression. Then he slumped, a sigh releasing from his mouth. "No, you don't have to answer me. I know why you're leaving, even if I don't know where you're going."

Shiro blinked. "You do?"

Lance nodded. He pulled one hand out from his armpit, rolled into a fist, and knuckled at his eye. "You think you can't be here anymore. You think it's too dangerous. But you can, Shiro. You can be here. You should be here. This is the best place for you, no matter what you think." He grimaced and bared his teeth, frustrated determination in every line of his body.

Shiro bit his lip. "You know about the tests."

"Yeah." Lance rubbed at his other eye, but the tears kept coming. "I'm Hunk and Pidge's rubber duck when they're having trouble figuring something out. I can't offer anything to the conversation, not really, but they can bounce ideas off me. I heard everything, even though I didn't understand ninety-five percent of it."

Shiro inched closer, inexorably drawn by that miserable undercurrent in Lance's voice. "You don't give yourself enough credit," he said softly. "You understand enough to ask good questions. You make them think more, in different directions, and it's good for them. I've seen you do it. You're not stupid, Lance."

Lance shook his head, lowered toward his chest, then raised it to look into Shiro's face again. Tears were streaming down both cheeks now. He'd stopped trying to wipe them away. "I know." Bitterness in his voice. "I figured out you would be here, didn't I?"

Shiro grimaced and took a step back. "I'm sorry."

"Don't go." Desperation, now. "Please, Shiro. Don't go. We'll figure something out."

Shiro had to hold on to his purpose. "I'm not just leaving to leave, buddy. There's something I have to do."

Lance tilted his head.

He pointed back to the cockpit. "I have all the data from Lotor. All of the labs and secret stashes Haggar's been keeping. It would be a waste of Voltron's time to track them down, not when you have so many other things to worry about. Planets to defend, people to save, a war to fight. I'm going to find out what's going on. Probably most of them will be dead ends, like the lab where we found that clone who couldn't brathe, but if I find anything, I'll call for back-up. Allura and Keith have both agreed."

Lance stared into his face. "Why didn't you discuss this with the team, then? Let us all talk about your plans, make a decision together?"

Shiro had to look away. He could hear Lance clenching his teeth.

"Because you just decided, didn't you. You decided you had to go. And then you told them."

Shiro looked back at him. He nodded.

Lance stepped closer. "Then take me with you."

Shiro's heart melted. "Oh, Lance."

Another step. "Please. Don't go alone. I can't...we can't lose you again."

"Buddy..." Shiro slumped. 

"They can find another paladin. They've done it before."

Shiro shook his head, helpless. He couldn't keep his distance any longer. Before Lance reached him, he reached back, grabbed his shoulders, pulled him in. Lance shuddered in his arms.

"Lance." Shiro held him close. "You are not replaceable. I can't take you away from the team."

Lance buried his nose in his shoulder and mumbled his words there. "I know you're worried that you might be a clone."

Shiro froze. He couldn't move, couldn't think, couldn't speak.

"You think that's why you dreamed about floating in pink liquid, right? Because maybe you're a clone, too." Lance's arms wrapped around his rib cage and squeezed him tight. "But you aren't. I know you aren't. You're Shiro. You've always been Shiro."

"Lance..." He could barely breathe. No, it had never crossed his mind that he could be a clone, too. Why not? It should have. Why had he never had that thought for himself? Why had it taken Lance to connect the dots for him?

"You're my hero," Lance whispered. "Since before I met you, since that day in Keith's shack, since you came back the second time. You've always been my hero. You still are. You're Shiro. I'm sure of it. You might be a little messed up in the head, a little scrambled, but you are. You're you."

"Kiddo..." Shiro held his shoulders and pushed him back, and Lance reluctantly let go, let himself be propelled until he stood separate again. He looked into Shiro's face, sniffling, seconds away from bawling. Shiro's voice went even more soft, more tender. "Thank you, Lance. I really appreciate it. I appreciate everything you've done for me. But I have to go. I have to make sure."

Resignation poured over Lance's expressive face. He nodded, then stepped back out of Shiro's grip and buried his face in his hands.

Shiro patted the top of his head. "I'll be back. For the third time. The last time. I promise."

"You'd better," Lance mumbled, but there was heat in it, too.

Shiro smiled, bittersweet and soft. Then he left.

He traveled to secret labs and worn-down warehouses, abandoned and broken and dead. He founds the remnants of experiments and research from centuries ago, millennia ago.

He found other replicas of himself, all with some sort of fatal flaw. A heart that didn't beat, that had arrythmia, limbs that had grown twisted or hadn't grown at all. Mouths that babbled like infants or were sewn shut. Eyes that didn't see or saw too much. Minds that were shattered. All floating in pink liquid, all twisted and useless and left to rot. He grew used to watching his own face dying in his arms or on the floor or in patchy, washed-out video recordings.

His heart became numb to horror, but never numb enough. This was his punishment for allowing himself to be captured and used. This was his penance for putting his team in danger, however unwitting. This was the burden he accepted so no one else would have to bear it.

He killed Galra soldiers, took down sentries, shot out laser turrets. Occasionally he joined with local rebels, sometimes even with Matt, to take down fortified targets. More often, he needed nothing more than himself and the weapon Haggar had built into his arm. He was the cancer she had created, returning to tear apart her body of work from within. He liked the metaphor. He liked it very much.

Everywhere he found data, he stripped out the more horrific elements and sent it back to Voltron. He kept in sporadic communication with Matt and Pidge, sometimes Hunk, more rarely Keith and Lance. He didn't want to taint them.

Because now that Lance had implanted the idea, he could not stop turning it over in his mind. Maybe he was a clone, too. Maybe he was a spy Haggar had sent to infiltrate Voltron, but somehow he had failed. Maybe he had been abandoned by her, too.

He could think of several instances since his second capture when he could have caused the team serious injury or even death. Always a judgment call, always something someone had argued against, but he got his way because he was the Black Paladin and everyone trusted him. Telling Keith to take a hit, telling Allura to hold back at a crucial moment. Telling them stay on the surface of Naxcella, waiting to see what would happen.

Shiro went cold when he remembered that moment. His decision could have killed them all. Would have, if not for Allura's unexpected surge of magical strength pulling them away from the doomed planet by brute force and raw power. Even then, they still might have died if Lotor had not thwarted Haggar's plan at the last moment. Lotor might have foiled Haggar's designs in more ways than he knew.

Maybe that was why Pidge and Hunk and Matt couldn't find anything wrong with Shiro's arm--because it wasn't the original. It was a copy, lesser and reduced, just like himself. Maybe that was why he hadn't been able to unlock Black's greater powers since the battle in which he'd disappeared. Maybe that was why he had been reluctant to wield the black bayard, because on some level he knew it wouldn't work for him.

Shiro didn't know if he was a clone. He was no longer certain one way or the other. And that was the most damning thing of all. He didn't know.

Maybe he would find the answer somewhere along this journey. Maybe he would know for sure eventually, one way or the other. Maybe in one of these hidden stashes, he would find the original Shiro hidden away, rescue him, bring him home. Or perhaps he would find incontrovertible proof that he was the original, and then he could breathe a sigh of relief and keep his promise to Lance.

Until that moment, he would keep searching.


	5. Change/Growth

Shiro had finally found him. A clone of himself with no physical deformities. He was not floating in pink liquid, left behind in a lost lab or abandoned warehouse. He was trapped in a cell, chained to the wall, slavering and shouting. "Let me go! Let me go! I'll tear you apart! I'll rip out your hearts! I'll eat your eyes! Let me out and let me fight!"

He was not shouting this at Shiro, just screaming it indiscriminately at the walls, the ceiling. His hair was dark and tangled, no streak of white, whipping around his head. His wrists were raw and bloody from pulling at his cuffs, and he didn't seem to feel it, or at least he didn't care.

Shiro had sneaked into the base successfully this far, but when he tried to access this Shiro's cell, he tripped a hidden alarm. Red lights began to flash in the hall, and a klaxon began to blare. Inside the cell, the savage clone halted momentarily, animal-like, head tilted with his ear in the air as if to listen more closely. Then he growled through his teeth, spittle flying from his mouth, and began to pull at his cuffs even more desperately.

Shiro finally found the control to open the cell door, not just let him see inside, and it snapped into the wall. The savage clone looked up at him, eyes wild and rolling, and Shiro held both hands out next to his chest, empty. "Hey. Do you recognize me?"

The clone's eyes raked up and down his body, teeth bared and chest heaving. He had the scar Shiro had found on all of his clones so far, but no prosthetic arm. So it wasn't possible for him to be the original. He had come through the process physically whole, but Haggar's programming must have gone wrong somehow. That, or he was being saved for later use, waiting to be deployed as her weapon.

"No," the clone said, teeth gritted. "Should I?"

So he didn't have Shiro's memories. They hadn't been implanted yet, or the attempt had been unsuccessful. Also, presumably, he hadn't been given access to a mirror, or he would have known that they looked like twins.

Shiro kept his hands raised. "If I let you go, will you attack me?"

The savage clone tilted his head, again with that bestial glint in his eye. "Are you my enemy?"

Shiro shook his head, the corner of his mouth turning up. "No. Not at all. I might be the only person in the universe who is on your side, completely and totally."

"I won't attack you if you aren't my enemy," the clone said confidently, heaving against his cuffs again.

"Do you serve the Galra Empire? Will you attack their enemies, as well?"

"What is that?" The clone narrowed his eyes, studying Shiro intently. "I don't know anything about an empire. I just want to be free so I can fight."

Okay, so Haggar's programming really had been unsuccessful, or at least incomplete. She had tried to turn this clone into a weapon and only gotten halfway, giving him savagery but no knowledge. That was probably why he didn't have the arm yet.

"All right." Shiro began to cross the cell, arms lowering to his sides. "I'm going to release you from the cuffs now. Everyone else in this base is an enemy, so you can fight them if you want, but our main objective is to get out, understand? I'll lead the way to the hangar, and I want you to follow me, no breaking off to take on enemies that are far away. We just need to take down anyone who gets between us and our exit, and once we're through that, we'll be free. Does that sound good to you?"

He ended up kneeling by the clone, one hand on the release mechanism for his cuffs, looking straight into his face. He still wasn't positive he could trust this person, but he was willing to make a leap of faith.

The clone nodded earnestly. "Yes. I want to be free. I won't fight you, just the enemies, and I'll stay by your side." At least he had been taught some sort of obedience, though Shiro wasn't positive that it would hold.

"Okay." Shiro released him. "Let's go."

They ran. Shiro had found an armory on the way, and he quickly procured a blaster weapon and shield for the clone. The clone was clumsy with the shield, but shot the blaster like he'd been born to it. When he saw Shiro light up his arm and fight with it, he complained that he wanted a short-range weapon, too. "I want to feel their blood," he said, smiling. "I want to paint my face with it."

Shiro shuddered, but only nodded in response. He could not pretend that he had never had similar thoughts and desires in the heat of battle, but it had always been buried under the sheen of civilization, subdued under discipline and purpose and the desire to protect others. This clone did not have that. He had not been raised under strict but wise parents, taught to fight for the innocent and not for his own selfish intent. He had the savagery that had always lurked in Shiro's heart, but nothing else. He was the Savage Self.

As they fled and fought and shed the blood of their enemies, Savage Shiro laughed in glee. Shiro resisted the urge to join in. And he wondered all along if he was making a terrible, terrible mistake.

Did Savage Shiro have the capacity for growth, for change? Or was he halted in his mental development right here, where Haggar had left him? Would he ever be able to see the world in anything but a binary between enemy and non-enemy, what to fight and what to leave alone? Would he be able to find pleasure in anything but killing?

Shiro didn't know, but he felt that it was worth the risk. He had to try. This person was a brother, however savage, however primitive, however terrifying. He deserved to be offered a hand of fellowship, even if he never learned how to take it.

In the last hallway outside the hangar, they ran into the fiercest knot of resistance. Shiro really should have called for backup on this mission, but he had foolishly trusted his stealth skills to bring him in and out of the base without trouble. It made sense, now, that this lab was more highly guarded than any of the others Shiro had tried so far. This clone might have actually been of use to Haggar eventually.

Savage Shiro roared in joy when several enemies burst out of the doorways around their position, surrounding them. Shiro hunkered where he stood, spreading his stance and watching for his moment, sheltering behind his shield as he took stock of the situation. The Savage Self threw away his shield and jumped into the crowd. He bowled over a Galra soldier and stole his enormous, cleaver-like sword, then began hacking and slashing.

Shiro cursed, then jumped in after him, seeing no alternative. He had told Savage Shiro not to chase down enemies far away, but he hadn't given any instructions about recklessly attacking enemies who were close. That was his mistake. He wouldn't make it again.

They just had to get through this fight. Shiro smashed his fist through the face of a robot sentry, his foot sweeping the legs of a soldier so his gun sprayed the ceiling, then whirled and punched another enemy behind him. Savage Shiro fought at his back, laughing loud and high as blood spattered over his face like a scattering of ugly stars.

It was brutal. But Shiro had never had such a good battle partner before, one who seemed to anticipate his moves before he made them and coordinated to match, one who Shiro understood as well as he understood himself. They fought like dervishes, like devils, hand and fist and sword, and they destroyed everyone who stood in their way. 

The remaining soldiers, only a handful now, turned to flee. Shiro stood for a fatal second in the middle of the carnage, staring around with his heart in his throat and his eyes burning. Then the noise of a shot caught his attention, and he looked up just in time to see Savage Shiro take a blast meant for him, straight to the chest.

He fell to the ground. Shiro scooped a gun up off the floor and shot the Galra who had hit him in the back. He watched him thud down, dead flesh, without remorse.

He scrambled over to the savage clone and pulled his head into his lap. The clone stared up at him, face rapidly paling as he heaved for breath. Every pump of his heart forced more blood out of the hole in his chest. The wound was wide and deep, and there was no way to close it.

Shiro stroked his hair. He had gotten used to watching himself die, but he still felt every death as if it was his own. "Why?" he murmured. "I thought you only wanted to fight. I didn't think you wanted to die."

The clone shook his head. "I...didn't. Didn't want to die. But...didn't want you to die, either. I've never...had a friend before."

He lifted a hand, limp, shaking. Shiro took it in his, palm to palm, and held on. Tears splashed down on the clone's face, diluting the blood and making it run over his cheeks in pinkish rivulets, like liquid draining away.

The clone closed his eyes and died with a shudder, and Shiro had his answer. Yes, this person had been capable of growth, of change. It had been cut short, but it had happened. The savage self was not a dead end.

He vowed never to forget.


	6. Distance/Proximity

He finally had it. Incontrovertible proof that he was a clone. Shiro stared at the video recording as it played on the viewscreen of his pod ship, eyes burning from not blinking enough. It wound to a stop. He played it again.

_"Subject Y0XT39 has normal response to optic stimuli. Approved for use in Operation Kuron."_

He'd heard those words before, but it had all been hazy and unclear in his head, muddled together. It came from the same place as the dreams of drowning in pink liquid, of a vision of Ulaz that vanished into mist. It came from the place he had escaped from, but he hadn't been able to put it together until he saw the recording, saw himself lying on this table and a Galra tech bending over him, shining a light into his eye.

Maybe there was something in his brain that wouldn't let him put the clues together until someone else did it for him, either Lance in the hangar at the Castle of Lions or this third-person view of himself on a table. Maybe Haggar had put some inhibition in his head to prevent him from understanding his own nature, or maybe it was just his own brain that didn't want to acknowledge it. Whether it was another one of Haggar's tricks or a just a quirk of Shiro's psyche didn't matter, not anymore. He knew who he was, what he was, and there was no going back. 

Shiro's hands were shaking. He reached out and turned off the recording, then started as something else filled his viewscreen. Allura's face, calling in. He hadn't meant to accept the connection, but his hand might have moved automatically. His mind was still buzzing with shock, working overtime to absorb one more bit of horror, one more existential crisis.

"A-Allura. Hello."

She tried to smile. "Shiro. I hope you're doing well."

"I..." Shiro rubbed a hand over his lower face and closed his eyes in a slow blink. 

He didn't have to say more. No doubt she could see his exhaustion, his pain, because she didn't comment further. Her lips tightened, and she spoke again. "Shiro, come home."

They kept asking this. From the day he'd left, and more and more frequently as the weeks passed. Everytime he checked in with someone, they always asked when he was coming back, if he was getting close, if his search was almost over. This was the first time someone had contacted him for no other reason than to tell him to come home, though. Trust Allura to be so direct.

Shiro opened his mouth. He wasn't sure what he was going to say. _"Don't call me Shiro,"_ maybe. That name didn't belong to him, not really. Or, less honestly, _"I'll be home soon."_ After all, the journey was essentially over. There were only two or three facilities left on the list Lotor had given them, and they probably held nothing but more failed clones. Shiro had his answers. He knew the truth.

He hadn't gotten far enough to make that decision, though. Now that he knew for sure that Haggar had made him, it would probably be better for him to run in the opposite direction as quickly as he could. He should put as much distance between himself and Voltron as possible. The entire universe, if he could.

Allura went on before he could make up his mind what to say. "We know. You don't have to stay away any longer."

Shiro blinked at her. His mind felt numb, fuzzed over. "You...know?"

She nodded briskly. "We know you're a clone."

Shiro's hands clenched on the edge of the console. He stared at her without blinking. His mouth was dry. "How...how..."

"Shiro...the first Shiro, I suppose we should call him. The original? I don't know, that seems too reductionist. You may not be the original Shiro, but you are still _Shiro._ Lance is very insistent on that, but the rest of us feel the same. In any case, the Takashi Shirogane who was originally kidnapped from Earth's solar system got into contact with us. He's in an alternate reality, and he needs our help to get home. We need you to be there."

"Allura..." He pressed his hand against his temple. The weird headache that had never gone away throbbed harder. "I'm not...I'm not safe. I don't know what kind of time bombs Haggar put in me. Especially now that we know for certain that I'm her creation, through and through... You can't trust me. I can't trust me. I don't want to put anyone in danger."

Here, oddly, she smiled, wide and soft. "You see? The mere fact that you think that way only proves your identity. You are Shiro, through and through. Your desire to protect your team has never wavered. No matter what Haggar did to you, how she used you, that has always been true. Always."

He swallowed. "Allura..."

"Come home." Her voice was soft, insistent. Commanding and kind in the same breath. Allura at her best always was. "We have all the data you found, and we know what Haggar did to the other clones and how she did it. If there's anything...incorrect...in your mind or body, we will find it and root it out. I swear, the team will be safe. But we can only be _happy_ if you return to us."

His eyes began to water. "Allura..."

"Please, Shiro." So soft. So kind. "Come home. We're all waiting for you."

At last, his hands began to move. He saw the coordinates Allura was broadcasting with her transmission and began to enter them into the navigation computer. "All right. You've convinced me. I'm on my way."

Allura smiled, then disconnected.

The trip back took a couple of days, hopping onto astro-lanes for faster-than-light travel, skirting black holes and stars that radiated dangerous energy. Once he set the course, he locked himself out of the navigation computer so he couldn't change his mind. Then he slept the best sleep he'd had for a long, long time.

It was all done. The decisions were all made. There was nothing else he could do. He fully expected them to have the original Shiro back from the alternate reality by the time he reached the Castle. That Shiro would fold back into the team like he'd never left, and all of the decisions for the future of the team would be finalized by the time he arrived.

The original Shiro was smart, and he was just as protective as he was. Shiro would see clearly that he was a threat to the team's safety and convince the others of how to contain that threat. If they chose to imprison him or exile him to prevent him from harming the team, or even kill him, whatever they wanted, he would submit to it. Anything to keep the team safe.

But when he arrived, the original Shiro wasn't there. The entire crew stood at the base of the pod ship's ramp, smiling and waving. Lance ran up the ramp to meet him, beaming. The distance closed, and then it vanished. Lance leaped into his arms. He caught his breath and laughed, then wrapped his arms around Lance and held him tight.

"Shiro, I'm so glad you're home!" Lance pulled back to look into his face, smile faltering. "Or...what should we call you? Is there another name you'd like? We gotta have some way to keep you apart, but I don't want to call you 'the clone' or something like that. That's cruel."

He smiled, a little bittersweet. No, he was not Shiro. He could not go by that name. "Why don't you just call me Shirogane for now?"

Lance frowned. "That seems cold. Is it okay if I call you Takashi instead?"

He bit his lip. Lance wasn't Japanese, so he didn't know that he was asking permission to treat him like family or an extremely close friend. Then again...seeing the seriousness in Lance's face and expression, he reconsidered. Maybe Lance knew exactly what he was asking.

Takashi nodded. "All right. That's fine. We'll have to come up with something different eventually, but that will work for now."

He looked around. "Where is...the first me? The real Shiro? We should talk about it."

"Don't call him 'real,'" Lance scolded. He grabbed Takashi's hand and dragged him down the ramp to meet the others. "You're real too, as real as anyone. But if you're asking about the first Shiro, that's fine. He's still in the alternate reality. We discovered a portal we can talk to him through, but we haven't been able to pass through anything physical yet."

Takashi blinked. "Not even Voltron?" He was pretty sure, from the stories he'd been told, that Voltron was the only thing that could pass through trans-reality rifts. 

Lance shook his head. "The portal's too small, and we haven't been able to widen it. We've been looking for other solutions for days now."

Now Takashi was surrounded with the rest of the crew, all demanding their turn to hug him and talk to him and exclaim over his return. Takashi was home. The rest would have to wait.


	7. Alternate Reality/Free

Takashi expected them to take him to the medbay, or perhaps Pidge's work table. Somewhere they could "root out" whatever was wrong in him, like Allura had said they would. But Lance was leading him by the hand again, pulling him down the hallway, and everyone else crowded around him, laughing and chattering, and they definitely weren't going anywhere he knew. Only Keith was holding back a bit from the group, watching Takashi with unmistakable wariness. Smart of him. Paradoxically, it made Takashi feel better to know that someone else was as paranoid of his presence here as he was.

They ended up in a part of the castle Takashi had never seen before. It seemed like a residential area, nicer than the sort of military barracks where the paladins usually slept. Diplomatic or royal quarters, maybe. They stopped in front of one particular door, and Lance bounced on his feet, waiting for Coran to open it.

"Um, guys?" Takashi spoke up. "Where are we?"

Hunk and Lance turned to him, eyes wide. "Oh, did we not explain?" Hunk asked.

Takashi smiled and shook his head. "Not really. You were all too excited."

Lance swept his hand toward the door just as it finally opened. "This is where the portal is."

Sure enough, Takashi had to squint and shield his eyes as a bright light struck out from the open doorway. Then he blinked away the sparks and leaned forward, mouth dropping open. It looked like a golden crack, hanging in the air. "How... Did it just appear on the ship one day?"

They crowded into the room, which was huge, with a bed the size of a studio apartment, drapery hanging from the walls and luxurious seating scattered around. The crack hovered in an open space, monitored by scientific equipment that must have been dragged in here after it appeared.

Lance led Takashi to within a few feet of the crack, then held him back at a careful distance. "Yeah, basically. Pidge could explain it better." He raised his eyebrows at her.

She humphed and adjusted her glasses. "Pretty much that, yes. We got some readings of an anomaly in this region of space, and it matched some of the frequencies from the trans-reality rift we encountered earlier. So we moved to investigate, and when the castle reached this exact position, suddenly the frequencies amplified exponentially."

"And then we heard Shiro's voice in the halls," Hunk said, voice hushed with awe. 

"So we tracked it down, and here we are." Lance spread his arms and spun in place.

Takashi huffed at him, then looked toward the crack. "Is he there now?"

"Yes, he should be. He knew you were going to be here soon." Coran took a step closer to the rift and leaned over with his hand cupped around his mouth. "Hellooooo in there! Number One, are you available? Number One Part Two has finally arrived!"

Lance groaned. "Holy crow, Coran, I can't believe you're still calling him that. Takashi. His name is Takashi."

Coran gave him a cheesy grin. "You have your ways of making sure our second Black Paladin feels at home, and I have mine."

Then the rift lit up. The gold intensified, and bright sparks of light fled from the edges of the crack. "Hello? He's here? We're calling him Takashi? That's good. It works."

Shiro's voice. Takashi's voice. But not. It might have been Takashi's imagination, but he was sure he heard a power, a resonance, that had never been in his own voice nor that of any of the other clones he'd met. Takashi went still, an electric thrill running over his shoulders. He couldn't speak, tongue frozen and lips cold.

Hunk put two big hands in the middle of his back and shoved him closer, stumbling two steps nearer to the rift. "Answer him, dude! He won't bite."

Shiro laughed. "I can't bite, seeing as I'm in an alternate reality. But also, I wouldn't bite in any case." His voice was warm, kind. "Takashi, yes? Thank you for taking care of my crew while I was away."

Takashi had to speak now, had to protest this massive misunderstanding of the situation. "I... I didn't, though. I made so many mistakes. I put everyone in horrible danger."

"You made mistakes?" Shiro's voice did not lose an iota of warmth. "That's funny. I did, too. I'm sure if I had been there in your place, I would have made just as many mistakes as you did. Different ones, maybe, but that's about it."

Takashi released a chuckle, high-pitched and hysterical. "You don't understand. I'm...I'm a bomb. We just don't know what kind, or when I'll go off. Or maybe I already have, I don't know. _I don't know._ That's the worst part. I don't... You shouldn't trust me. You _can't_ trust me."

"If you're a bomb, we'll defuse you." Such confidence. Takashi didn't understand it at all. "I admit, I was pretty shocked when the others told me about your existence and we figured out what Haggar did, how she used and violated both of us. But the beginning is not the end, you know. You don't have to be what she made of you."

Takashi closed his eyes. Yes, he did know that. Savage Shiro had shown him that in the most painful way possible.

"You're so afraid of what could be that you're missing what _is,"_ Shiro said. "What was it Commander Holt kept saying? Do you remember it, too? If not, I'll remind you."

Takashi drew a shaky breath. He mouthed the words along with Shiro, though he didn't say them aloud. "Go. Be great."

Shiro laughed, a little shaky now, too. Takashi had never felt so close to anyone that he could remember, and they were currently in different realities. "Hey, I know what you're thinking, right? We're basically the same person. I know how scared you are. I know how bad you want to believe this, and how certain you are that it's all a lie. But I also know that we can do this. I'll trust you enough for both of us, at least until you have enough to carry yourself. Everything is going to be okay."

Takashi laughed, too, though there were tears in his voice. He looked around at the others, giving a tremulous smile. "Is this why you brought me here first? So Shiro could give me a pep talk?"

Lance shrugged, Hunk smiled, Pidge looked unbearably smug, and Coran twirled his mustache. Allura's eyes were bright and kind. "Not precisely. He just really, really wanted to meet you."

"Oh." It was a barely a word, breathed out on a choked whisper of air. The rift glowed brighter, and Takashi stared at it, mesmerized. He found himself taking a step closer, almost without realizing, his left hand reaching out. It was beautiful.

"I didn't ask for this either," Shiro said. The crack glowed even more, pulsing with the rhythm of his voice. "Who would ever ask to be cloned? But you know, after some thought, I'm warming up to the idea. I always wanted a brother."

Takashi reached the rift. He was vaguely aware of sudden shouts of alarm from Pidge, from Hunk and Coran, telling him to get back, it was dangerous, it could _kill_ him, but it barely registered. All he knew was that he had never resonated with anything the way he resonated with Shiro's voice, so far away and so close in the same instant, and he wanted, he wanted...

He reached into the rift. He felt a hand clasping his, warm and solid and real. And he _pulled._

Shiro stumbled out of the trans-reality rift, blinking in surprise. He looked good, strong and healthy, his haircut precise and stylish unlike Takashi's mess of a head. His arm was different than Takashi's, made of some kind of white alloy with teal highlights, more like the Altean aesthetic rather than the metal gray and purple of Takashi's current prosthetic. The rift dimmed slightly, then abruptly vanished into thin air with a faint crackle of power.

Shiro looked down at his flesh hand, still clasped in Takashi's. He laughed. Then he looked up into Takashi's face, beaming like a sunrise. "Hey, bud. Good to see you."

Takashi laughed. Then he cried. Shiro tugged him closer by their clasped hands, then wrapped his arms around him and held on. 

"It's okay," Shiro said over and over again. "You're okay, you're okay, you're okay. Thank you for bringing me home."

And finally, finally, for no reason Takashi could understand, that throbbing headache of wrongness was gone. He was free.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And everything was good and they figured out anything that was wrong with Takashi and renamed him Ryou after the imaginary playmate Shiro had when he was a kid and Ryou became a full member of the crew and was playful and funny and had spa days with Lance and worked with Hunk in the kitchen and teased Pidge and Matt when they were being nerdy and supported Allura and helped Coran and Shiro be the adults of the ship when an adult was necessary but he also could be a kid with the younger paladins because he didn't have to keep that veneer of authority like Shiro and in very dire circumstances he was a backup paladin even though it wore him out really bad because his quintessence wasn't quite as strong as Shiro's but it was okay because everyone took care of him and loved him and they defeated the Empire and Haggar went away and nothing could ever hurt him again and eventually Ryou and Shiro retired together to a planet full of dogs. The End.


End file.
